14 DAY TRIAL // It’s official: Conan O’Brien will no longer be hosting The Tonight Show after the end of January. Instead, his position will be occupied by former host Jay Leno, as several sources were already saying the other day. O’Brien and NBC have reached an understanding, with the deal to be finalized today, which is also when an official announcement should drop, TMZ informs.
Though the initial proposal coming from NBC only implied a change in its nightly timeslot, it later transpired that the network was actually looking for a way out of the contract it had with O’Brien to put Leno in his place. When O’Brien said in an open letter that he would leave NBC if it insisted on the change, it also emerged that Leno was willing to agree to it if he was given his job on The Tonight Show back. This literally meant that all NBC had to do was to come up with a good deal for O’Brien to get him to leave.
As far as that last part is concerned, the attorneys for the network have delivered, TMZ has learned. Nothing is official just yet, but O’Brien’s departure should be confirmed today. “Conan O’Brien and NBC have reached a settlement in principle and the big announcement is expected Saturday, sources tell TMZ. We’re told NBC has already given Conan’s lawyers a draft of the agreement and his hired guns were going over it Friday night. The deal should be finalized Saturday,” the report says.
What this means is that when ink is put on paper, O’Brien is out of the picture and Leno is back in, which could be what NBC wanted all along, if ongoing reports are anything to go by. “Once the deal gets inked, NBC will announce Conan is leaving the network. The network will also announce what we first reported – that Jay Leno will get the full hour from 11:35 PM to 12:35 AM and it will be called The Tonight Show – just like old times,” TMZ also says.
Other rumors now making the rounds have it that, in exchange for his promise that he will not take matters to court, NBC has agreed to offer O’Brien a payoff of no less than $30 million. Also with that money, the network promises not to hold its initial threat of keeping O’Brien off the air for three whole years, which would have been the duration of his contract.